Codicil
by Zenith Mordant
Summary: The aftermath of the Opera. Shilo attempts to make good on her final promises to her father. The Largo children make and break alliances. Rotti continues to change lives from beyond the grave. GraveRobber faces an uncertain future in the Zydrate market. There is an unexpected return.
1. Becomes the Color

**Author's Note**: This story serves a personal goal to write a new chapter every fortnight for the foreseeable future. The story itself takes place directly after the events of Repo! The Genetic Opera. For interest, I plan to include the song each chapter is written to as I usually listen to one on repeat when I write. If you feel it will enhance your experience please have a listen yourself while you read, all songs will be available on Spotify.

**Song: **Becomes the Color - Emily Wells

* * *

SHILO

She was free at last. The cameras flashed violently in her face, blinding her, she turned and cast one last glance back at the carnage that lay inside the theatre. Shilo felt a pang of longing, a need for guidance, love. She turned and strode out past the crowds into the night. She couldn't go back. Yet she didn't know how to go forward. So she went home.

The Wallace house had taken on a different character for Shilo now. She had always resented the thick wood walls and high gates for confining her to a life of boredom, yet after the evening's events, she realised what they had been protecting her from. All desire to immerse herself in Rotti Largo's world had withered for the moment. Her father was dead. Shilo swayed in the doorway and grasped at the frame for support, her limbs felt heavy, her breathing laboured. She didn't want to think about Dad now. She staggered up the ancient staircase and took herself to bed.

Shilo woke slowly, uncertain of how long she had slept. She could not even remember taking her wig and shoes off before getting into bed, yet it seemed she had. Her body felt languid, her eyelids heavy, she had never woken feeling so unrested before. She sat up and a headache flared, blood racing to her temples and thundering past her eardrums. Wincing, she stopped a moment to catch her breath and gazed at the plastic quarantine sheets that surrounded her bed before snapping into action. Legs apart to steady herself on the soft mattress, she tore feverishly at the translucent sheets, pulling them from the ceiling and casting them into haphazard piles on the floor. There they shimmered with a slick sheen, almost psychedelic. It strained her eyes to look at them, so she didn't. She scrunched her eyes shut and clenched her jaw out of both pain and rage. Everything had been a lie. The fury and the grief for the wasted years boiled up inside of her, she grasped at her smooth scalp in anguish, feeling like she could scream. And then she caught sight of it, the Blind Mag poster she had lovingly placed in the prime position over her bed. _Oh_. Suddenly, the rage dissipated and her legs collapsed beneath her. She crumpled down onto the mattress and sobbed. She knew that Mag's death was the most unnecessary of them all, she wept for the times that might have been had her father not lied to both of them.

"It's my fault."

Shilo turned at the sound of the voice and gasped at the vision of her father standing before her in the centre of her bedroom.

Nathan continued, "You had a godmother, your hero, and I did nothing to help her. I am the reason she is dead."

She flinched and the anger rose in her again. He must have tried to repossess Mag's eyes the night of the Opera. "You killed her," she spat.

"No. Not me. How could I have? I was with you when she fell."

This was true, she tried to reject it, but could not refute his logic.

"But," he sighed, "I did not protect her from Rotti."

"Why didn't you? Did you not care? She was my godmother, Mother wanted her to be in my life. She wasn't a threat. She wouldn't have told him. I hate this. I hate you," Shilo gasped, furious. Her ears were ringing and her pulse was hammering in her head. The medical bracelet on her wrist declared a blood pressure warning, 'Medicate Immediately!' She panicked momentarily before recalling the events of the opera. She wasn't sick, she was poisoned. _It must Dad's drug_, she thought. She didn't need the medicine. _Free at last_. Freedom sure hurt like a bitch. Her body wanted her medicine, _she_ wanted it. _Is this withdrawal?_ Shilo took a breath, blinked, and her father had gone.

She slipped off the bed and slowly made her way downstairs, bracing one arm against the wall as she went for support. Aware of her growling stomach she headed towards the kitchen with food on her mind. All the while she was seeing the house with new eyes, the holographic portraits of her mother no longer seemed so normal. Could Dad have really killed her as the Largos had said? _It made no sense_. But maybe she had never really known him at all. He had been a state-sanctioned murderer all these years. Perhaps killing his own wife was an easy feat for a Repo Man. If that was so, what had stopped him from killing her? She had pissed him off often enough. She thought she had seen him snap. It could be that she had not given his self-control enough credit.

She reached the large kitchen and searched the pantry to find only a couple of stale bread rolls. The tiles were cold on her bare feet, she was already shivering and not eager to open the fridge. They would have to do. Shilo retraced her steps with her bounty in hand, staring at the flickering images of her mother all about her. Mag had been right, the house was a tomb. Marni's body was kept here, not in the mausoleum, what was the point of a grave if the body was in the house? _The body_. Shio turned and raced back past the kitchen and onwards towards the end of the hall where her mother's body was kept behind a glass window. She stopped short. Glass lay shattered on the floor, the pane had been smashed, her mother's corpse was gone.

"This can't have been Dad," she spoke to the space where her mother had once been. "Someone else as has been here." _Someone could still be here_.

Nausea rose in her as she realised this whole time the house had not been the haven she had presumed. She needed to get out. She needed help. She needed to know why. If this was done because of Dad's work that shouldn't be too difficult to find out. But if it was about her mother, if it was personal, she would need to know from someone who was there seventeen years ago. _Everyone is dead_.

"No," Nathan's voice spoke inside her head. "Not the children".

Shilo trembled at the thought of going to the Largo children for information. They must already resent her for their late father's fixation on her. They would laugh at her, scorn her, maybe even kill her. It was not an option for her. But it could be an option for a grave robber.


	2. Spitfire

**Author's Note:** This story serves a personal goal to write a new chapter every fortnight for the foreseeable future. The story itself takes place directly after the events of Repo! The Genetic Opera. For interest, I plan to include the song each chapter is written to as I usually listen to one on repeat when I write. If you feel it will enhance your experience please have a listen yourself while you read, all songs will be available on Spotify.

*~the dialogue in this chapter is written to imitate an oral exchange through song~*

**Song:** Spitfire - The Prodigy

* * *

GRAVEROBBER

He went not out of any inherent kindness but to satisfy his own curiosity. There had been nothing but speculation in the media over the identity of the waif-like girl he had encountered only days before. Never did he think that the aforementioned waif-like girl with the timid voice would have endured the life the tabloids were speculating she had. Sure, he thought it was plucky of her to be snooping around graveyards and the surgery tents at Sanitarium Square, but any thirteen year old with a lust for Zydrate would do the same. She had been sickeningly obsessed with the repossession of Blind Mag's eyes too, a typical starstruck fan. Too bad that was all wrapped up now. It was a genuine loss, there would not be another voice like that for a millennia, if ever again at all. At least Amber must be smug to finally have the spotlight all to herself. GraveRobber smirked at the thought, Amber would probably fracture at the first criticism in the press, there's no way she could handle real publicity, she could not even handle the idea of this kid thinking Blind Mag was hotter shit than Amber. _Yes, she really flipped her shit, but anything that will make her want to get fucked off her tits suits me._ The memory amused him, getting Amber worked up was well worth it, and the kid handled it well. He ought to have gotten her name at the time, though who would have thought she would end up being at the centre of a blood feud? There are some things that cannot be foreseen, no point wasting thought on it anyway, things ought to become clearer shortly. Grave Robber chuckled at the irony of it all and entered the designated graveyard for the meeting. This was where he felt most at home, the looming monuments, the residual grief, the forgotten lives; he was in his element.

He rounded the corner of one particularly ornate crypt overgrown with decaying vines and saw her standing awkwardly beside a nondescript tombstone. He approached her slowly, he didn't want to intimidate her, he was too interested for that.

"Um, thank you for coming here," Shilo stuttered. She was clearly more than interested in him, yet whether it was for his personal effects or for his wares was unclear.

"A girl in a graveyard is always a pleasure," he smirked.

"I've got a proposal for you to hear."

"Kid, I'm at your leisure."

She drew in a breath. He stepped towards her in anticipation. Colour flushed to her cheeks, he loomed over her. Under the light of the blemished moon, it was the first time she had the chance to fully contemplate his stature and features. He stood a good foot above her small frame, his skin was pale, his eyes quick and cold. A smirk was tracing its way easily across his face with each moment her gaze flickered over him. Her breathing quickened, as did her words when she spoke again:

"I need you to help me learn about my parents. There's so much I don't know. I thought maybe a Largo..."

"Oh. That would be a no. Time for me to go." He turned to leave. Some things were not worth the risk. Knowledge alone can be dangerous, sharing it only creates trails of evidence leading back to the source. He was not about to let that be him.

"Wait, I can make it worth your while."

_Fuck she must really be desperate_. _Not to my taste_. He swung about and laughed. "Kid, I ain't a pedophile."

She started, abrupt and offended. "I'm seventeen! But no, I think Dad had some stuff."

"Not good enough."

"Some tools of the trade could help you."

He softened at her wavering stance, she was getting more worked up about this than the usual gossip-mongering reporters for the visual tabloids. There was a veritable need here. He relented. "They could do. But kid, you need to help yourself. You gotta find out if Dad had a hideout. A lab. A place to dissect bodies on a slab. Have you been there?"

She sighed, "I wouldn't know where."

"Hey, these things are usually hidden in plain sight." He shrugged, turned and started walking back the way he came.

"Wait!" She cried. "Will you help me with the Largos? Please!"

He kept strolling, ignoring her, he had spotted a mass grave on his way here. He was a businessman, he had obligations to tend to, clients and potential clients. His business was not an easy one, after all. A willingness to get one's hands dirty while at the same time exerting an immeasurable degree of charm were the demands of the trade. A fine balance. Paradoxical. Nonetheless, he had a job to do and one that required his full attention. The grave lay before him, he stood at its edge. Mangled limbs and pale flesh that was almost radiant in the moonlight. He leapt in, a sickening squelch and crunch was the sound that welcomed his feet. He knelt down and unrolled his leather work bag, extracting his syringe and the accompanying vial. With one hand he clasped the nearest head by its jaw and tilted it back, exposing the nasal passages to the pale light that shone from the heavens. With a swift and expert movement, he forced the needle in, past the sinuses to puncture the through to the frontal lobe. He deftly pulled the syringe plunger to draw out the luminous blue fluid. Removing the syringe from the corpse he transferred the fresh Zydrate to the vial. _One down, 99 to go._ The stench of rotting flesh was a welcoming soberant. There was no room now to dwell on peripheral skirmishes that did not concern him or his trade. Yet. _What a stupid kid_. She was going to end up under a concrete slab with a needle in her brain. _A shame. She is indeed plucky. And indeed pretty._ _Guess I will see what I can see_.


	3. Retrograde

**Author's Note:** This story serves a personal goal to write a new chapter at least every fortnight for the foreseeable future. The story itself takes place directly after the events of Repo! The Genetic Opera. For interest, I plan to include the song each chapter is written to as I usually listen to one on repeat when I write. If you feel it will enhance your experience please have a listen yourself while you read, all songs will be available on Spotify.

**Song:** Retrograde - James Blake

* * *

AMBER SWEET

Amber stood naked in front of the gargantuan mirror that covered the entire East wall of her bedroom suite. _Standing with your legs apart is more flattering, apparently_. She clutched at her stomach, then her thighs. Nausea welled up inside of her. She pivoted ninety degrees to view her profile. _No good_. Another pose, looking over her shoulder at her back and rear. _Fucking hell_. It was still the body she had been in during the events two nights gone, at the Opera. It was the body in which she had been disowned. She hated it. She hated herself. _Time for a change_. She had already auctioned off her fallen face, her first independent statement as the heir apparent of Geneco. But that had not been enough. She flounced over to her dresser and rang the bell to summon her assistants. Within moments the identical men had appeared at the doorway, unfazed by her lack of dress. It was nothing abnormal.

"I need a makeover. Book me a surgery."

Her assistant to the left inclined his head. "What are you wanting in particular, Ms Sweet?"

"I'm thinking let's add a few inches of height, a new nose, update the liver obviously. Of course the usual eyes, lips, hair."

"As you wish, Ms Sweet. Would a surgery tonight be palatable to you?"

"Yeah, whatever."

She turned and started to hum, already feeling better. A new look is halfway to being a new woman. Once she had her new vocal cords nothing of the girl who disgusted her father would remain. This was who she really was inside, temporary, transitionary, not really anyone at all, and it suited her just fine.

If she was having a surgery tonight then she would need something for the agony. Add height meant breaking both her legs and realigning the bone. She needed to get her hands on some Zydrate within the next few hours. With this goal in mind, she opened her wardrobe and selected a sheer dress and a pair of thigh-high lace-up boots. She wandered over to face her mirror to don them when her once of her assistants, she was not sure which precisely, appeared at her side trailed by a man she recognised to be her usual GraveRobber. Her assistant appeared apologetic.

"Sorry Ma'am, I could not convince him to wait outside."

She took no notice. Taking her time, she slipped into her dress and laced up the boots before turning to her guest and acknowledging him.

"You're just the man I wanted to see. I need Z."

He chuckled. "Surgery can't change that your heart beats with common blood. Anyway, your immediate needs are not exactly why I am here. I have a business proposal for you."

"Oh? What could you possibly offer me that I can't just take?"

"An unlimited supply of Zydrate, for you, as long as I am still living you don't have to live with yourself. Eternal tapping out, if you will."

"And I guess I have something I gotta give you in exchange."

"I was thinking now that you are, you know, heir apparent, as principal shareholder and director of Geneco you could instruct your company to turn a blind eye to my activity. Naturally, I have absolutely no problem with Geneco employees continuing to butcher other GraveRobbers. That's just fucking good business."

Amber laughed. This was a bold move by him, one seemingly reliant on their intimate exchanges over recent years. That did not make it a bad idea. If he could secure a monopoly on the market like this then he would not have to worry about his next meal ever again. It could be a nice gesture from her, a reward for all that he had procured for her in the past. The benefits of having full control over the illicit drug market within her wider surgery market would undoubtedly be commercially advantageous.

And yet.

_Why do I need him at all?_

As the director of Geneco, she could instruct her surgeons to prescribe her as much Zydrate as she liked. Fucking a GraveRobber for Zydrate was no longer an act of rebellion, not with her father dead. There was nothing to rebel against. Certainly, she had no personal attachment to him, he was just another guy, she had two of them on call at all times already. _Surely this has all occurred to him? Maybe he was hoping he could secure an arrangement before I realised the full extent of my new power. _ _Maybe I thought too highly of him and he's actually a fuckwit. That's still hot I guess. _

She smiled at him. Gathering herself into some semblance of professionality she clasped her hands together and made the slightest of bows. "I will have to consider your offer, GraveRobber." This was a lie. She had already decided on her course of action. She was Rotti's only legitimate child. Her brothers _bless their hearts_, had been born out of wedlock, her mother was Rotti's only bride. She was Geneco's heir. That made the best interests of Geneco the best interests of Amber Sweet, and those were to eliminate the Zydrate black market.

He looked genuinely surprised. "That is… not what I expected, but it's not a no, so I'll take it."

"Thank you. I trust you can find your own way out."

He turned to leave, brows furrowed, disgruntled with leaving things unsettled. At that moment Amber's second bodyguard-turned-assistant entered with a formal notice in hand.

"Ma'am there is an official reading of your late father's will. Tomorrow."

GraveRobber stopped in his tracks, evidently happy to have overheard this tidbit of information.

"What will? What do you mean an _official_ reading? Isn't it clear I inherit? Those quasi-literate fuckheads aren't capable of deciphering a will anyway there's no chance Dad would have gone against the natural intestacy rules for them."

"I cannot explain his motivations, Ma'am. This is all I have been told."

Amber directed her next words to GraveRobber. "Aren't we lucky we didn't settle yet, glow-boy?"

"Fortuitous indeed," he smirked.

She turned back to her assistant. "Cancel my surgery, if I'm going to be disinherited on top of being disowned it may as well be in the same body." _Those dickhead brothers of mine would love that_. A new concern suddenly crossed her mind. "Who will be there? At the reading, I mean. My brothers?"

"I understand it is a public forum, Ma'am."

"Fuck that. How can I keep them away? What if they find out they're owed something?"

GraveRobber spoke, startling Amber who had assumed he had left. "Wills only work so long as there are people willing to enforce them. It doesn't matter what the law is if the person with the power sees things… differently."

"Now would be a great time for you to fuck off thanks." She snapped. His 'common blood' remark was still weighing heavily on her mind. She did not want his advice and she certainly did not want to become indebted to him in any way if she could avoid it.

He grinned at her reaction nonetheless, amused, and swaggered off in the direction he came from. Deftly and without detection he collected the file labelled 'WALLACE' open on Amber's desk as he passed it by.


	4. Need & Want

**Author's Note:** This story serves a personal goal to write a new chapter every fortnight for the foreseeable future. The story itself takes place directly after the events of Repo! The Genetic Opera. For interest, I plan to include the song each chapter is written to as I usually listen to one on repeat when I write. If you feel it will enhance your experience please have a listen yourself while you read, all songs will be available on Spotify.

**Song:** Need/Want - The Venus Project

* * *

SHILO

She was really fucked off at her Dad. _What the shit_. Shilo knew she must have looked like a wild asylum inpatient staring off into the empty space behind the GraveRobber and mumbling under her breath. He had been right there, appeared at the crucial moment just as she was getting somewhere with the GraveRobber. Boom, there he was in the anti-flesh. _I'm a goddamn lunatic_.

She hurried away through the graves in the opposite direction of the GraveRobber. Whether her father was a hallucination or restless dead she had had enough. She slammed the crypt door behind her and made her way through the tunnel that lead back to her home at pace, breathing heavily as she went. With each breath, her frustration grew. Of course Dad had some kind of lab, why hadn't she thought of that herself? It was obvious. But where could it be, she knew the house, had traced every inch of the wood panelling, the ornate picture frames, the sumptuous wallpaper. There was no way that a hidden laboratory has escaped her notice all those years.

She muttered the GraveRobber's parting words to her as she neared the end of the tunnel and clasped the door handle. "Hey these things are usually hidden in plain sight." At least he had been useful for something, she had suspected that all he was good for was illicit drug dealing and she had nearly fallen for his ploy days before that Zydrate could cure her blood disease. The benefits of her less than ideal situation included the disappearance of her old problems though overshadowed by the emergence of the new ones.

She stepped into the vestibule of her home. The house still bore the uneasy quality that it had acquired the moment she deduced that agents of an enemy had broken in and stolen her mother's body. She wondered where it was now. She wondered if she was alone. The thought made her uncomfortable so she turned her mind to dinner instead. She was interrupted by the ring of the buzzer at the gate which startled her more than it normally would have. She crept towards the door and peered through the wrought iron bars that obscured the path and front gates. A car was parked outside with a smartly dressed official standing outside. No visible weapons. She reached for an umbrella from the stand anyway. _Can't be too safe_.

Unlocking the gate she beckoned through the glass of the door for the man to approach up the path, as he neared her she made out the form of three envelopes in clutched in his hand. She gestured for him to leave them on the doorstep and he swiftly obliged, bowing, he turned and went back the way he came. She made sure that the car had driven off and the gates were locked remotely before turning the key in the front door and prying it open.

She was astonished to find that all three were addressed to her, Miss Shilo Wallace. _No one knew I existed two days ago_. She secured the front door and sat down cross-legged on the floor. Shilo opened the first letter and read the opening line.

'Miss Wallace your presence is requested at the reading of the last will and testament of Rotti Largo.'

She felt immediately ill. Reading on she discovered that a summons in writing was necessary as she was a named party in the will, the recipient of some form of inheritance or gift. Fresh fury ignited her veins and she balled the letter in her fist. _How dare he kill my father and attempt to buy my love, even now? From beyond the grave! _She cast it aside and turned to the next one.

It opened with almost the exact same phrase, she nearly tore it up thinking it was a duplicate of the Largo letter, but then she noticed the name. 'Nathan Wallace'. _This is about Dad's will_. _Fuck me._ She unfolded the scrunched Largo letter and held one in each hand, comparing them. Both readings were to be held tomorrow, one after the other. It was strange to see two men, different in almost every way, so crudely grouped together.

She continued to read the letter about her father's estate. The will supposedly pertained to the house, the family crypt, and the subterranean laboratory. _What in the fuck is that?_ The will specified the lab as a separate title to the house and the crypt. _Subterranean, that means its underground somewhere. Where am I even supposed to start looking?_ Shilo, frustrated left the two letters on the floor, holding the third she stood up and walked over to the door concealed in the wood panelling by the stairs that led to the crypt. She crept along the tunnel, her fingertips tracing the edges of the final envelope. She already had a confident suspicion about its contents, she wanted to be near her mother's grave while reading it if those suspicions were correct.

She sat down next to a bouquet of long-stemmed red flowers that had been left outside the crypt on the night of the Opera. They were withering now but their scent was still strong, she breathed it in deeply, it was heavy, laden with memory. She looked at the envelope, the hand that had addressed them all to her must have been the same one, the writing seemed identical to the others. Opening the letter she found that her precognition was confirmed.

'Miss Wallace your presence is requested at the reading of the last will and testament of Magdalene DeFoe.'

_Mag must have left me something. No, don't be an idiot Shilo, she probably left it to Mom or Dad and now it's passing to you. Dipshit. She didn't know even know you existed._

Three wills. Three public testaments. All tomorrow. Shilo supposed she couldn't ignore three summons. Anything from Rotti she had already resolved to burn, it was equally settled in her mind that she would have no surprises hearing what her father had left her, it was probably everything. But Mag had added a legitimate feeling of intrigue. _I risked going outside for her once, I can do it again now_. With her new-found resolve now established, she felt better. The dead she owed she would do right by. She would do her best to honour the memories of both her father and her godmother. She smiled at the thought of them in some way watching her, being proud of her, before remembering she had cursed the appearance of her father mere minutes before. Her smile turned into a wry grimace instead. Gazing grimly at her mother's gravestone she wondered if her father's apparition would answer her if she asked it where his lab was. _Unlikely_. This she would have to figure out herself.

She stood and made her way back along the tunnel, she had planned to eat as soon as she got home from the graveyard and with this unexpected delay she was now ravenous. She ran her finger along the side of the rocky cavern, deep in thought. _Dad's lab may be hidden underground but it would still have to be close to the house for him to have come and gone so quickly all the time._ She thought about what the GraveRobber had said. _These things are usually hidden in plain sight. _It didn't ring one bell. All she knew was there was this one underground tunnel to the crypt. _Wait. This _one _underground tunnel_. _How do I know there is only one?_ She sprinted to the end and emerged once more in the entranceway of her home.

She took a few steps backwards, facing the stairwell and regarding the visual symmetry of the space. She turned her head towards the direction she had just come from. _One tunnel that way_. She turned her head in the other direction, looking at the fireplace now instead. _If the symmetry goes deeper than the surface, then there is something over there going deeper than the surface of the earth. _She approached it slowly, with a hesitance that betrayed her anxiety that she might be wrong, overthinking things as usual. Once she was close her fingers traced the marble edges of the facade, feeling for a latch. Losing hope with each moment. And then she felt it, a small metal button.

The facade of the fireplace swung forwards with ease. Darkness awaited within but Shilo had exhausted her capacity for fear two days prior. She stepped inside and descended a short set of stairs, further down, along a tunnel she came upon an ill-lit room. It contained a large desk, several cabinets, scrubs and lab coats, medical equipment. Her eyes were drawn to the corner where a trolley stood, coated in a thick layer of dust. She approached, realising once she was closer that underneath the dust were dozens of vials. _Weird_. _It's all weird_._ What did he get up to down here?_ In the other direction was a doorway she had not noticed initially, between this room and the next hung a curtain of thick, opaque plastic. She separated it with two hands and passed through to find a gigantic operating table, pivoted so that it stood upright.

On the operating table remained the putrefied figure of a corpse.

_Oh fuck_. On the periphery of her vision she saw the outline of her father, he had appeared again. Shocked and overwhelmed she could pay the vision no attention. Her eyes were fixed on the naked remains of the man before her. She felt nauseous. She would have vomited if she had eaten recently. She thought about fainting and did that instead.


	5. WHEN I WAS OLDER

**Author's Note:** This story serves a personal goal to write a new chapter every fortnight for the foreseeable future. The story itself takes place directly after the events of Repo! The Genetic Opera. For interest, I plan to include the song each chapter is written to as I usually listen to one on repeat when I write. If you feel it will enhance your experience please have a listen yourself while you read, all songs will be available on Spotify.

**Song:** WHEN I WAS OLDER - Billie Eilish

* * *

She wasn't sure where she was. If she was awake, or asleep. If this was real. If she was. She tried to open her eyes. And again. Nothing. The blackness had never felt so consuming.

_Am I dead?_

Her heart skipped a beat with this thought. The feeling of her hammering pulse comforted her. A heart rate is something the living have. But she still could not see.

_Okay, so no sight_. _We've done this before. Feel instead_.

She stretched out her consciousness to her arms, legs, any part of her body that would obey her will. Her limbs felt heavy, crushed with the weight of what she assumed was her continuing existence. This was a lethargy unknown to her. Everything was numb, detached. Something strayed past what she remembered to be her fingertips. It felt cool, hard but flexible. It was thick and smooth, like a sheet plastic tarpaulin. It was unfamiliar and her nerves were not her own. This sensory information gave her nothing trustworthy. Frustrated and exhausted, she retreated back to the recesses of her mind. Maybe the material was the plastic of a body bag. She could be in a coffin. She wondered if she was dead again. It would explain the crushing loneliness. At least she had been graced with seventeen years of practice for this. Alone alive, alone dead. _Maybe some grave robber will harvest Zydrate from my corpse_. The thought did not bother her as much as it would have years before. _At least I would be useful for once_. At least death seemed painless. _This is what you wanted, after all_. There had been nothing worth living for anyway. Not until yesterday when the ghosts of the past had come visiting on her. It had been as if Marni was reaching back from the realm beyond, though whether that had been to beckon her to join the afterlife or convince her to remain trapped in her mortal coil was open to interpretation. How she missed Marni. Life had been so much easier when she was blind in more ways than one to the horrors of this world.

And yet this was a situation not unlike how things had been before, albeit with more limited motor functions.

_Like before. Huh._

Inklings of her final performance teased the edge of her consciousness, just beyond her grasp. If she had been here before when she was younger, a teenager, then how did she get back here now?

_Okay, let's say, just for argument's sake, that you're not dead. That sensation, that helplessness, what was it like? Was it like this? _Maybe it was. God that was something equally as morbid as death. She remembered that early yesterday she had not cared which outcome she was dealt. Either way, she had presumed it would be black.

There was no harm in finding out for sure. Things had changed now. Within the fog of her memories, she recalled a reason to hope, a potential for a better future, not in the next world but in this one. It had something to do with Marni. Of course it could not be Marni herself, she had seen her best friend's embalmed corpse with her own eyes. _My own eyes_. Yes, she must make sure her suspicions were correct.

She stretched her fingers out once more. Pain shot through her body at once, a feeling like electricity emanated from her left wrist and ran up to her shoulder. With the remaining strength she had, she felt the soft sensation of bedclothes and the smooth of plastic. There was something here. She was here.

She was in pain. So she was alive.

Mag could just make out the sound of footsteps fading as the crushing blackness engulfed her consciousness once more.


End file.
